[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[Fintourist]

Also you guys have probably already thought this, but I think it might be best for meta (?) reasons not to settle toward the coast with our first settler. Sullla's March Madness thing has kinda reinforced that for me lately ...

This is a fair point (If I understood you correctly). Below is a screenshot from sandbox run that I did last week and some thoughts related to your comment:

So this is still a fairly unoptimized version of our start. The dot-map logic is to pretty much get all the important resources into first ring of first four cities as we don't produce any culture yet and cities #5 and #6 are just completely imaginary.




We still need to think about some trade-offs. E.g. Whether we want to give up some of these resources from the first ring so that we get more cottage growing overlap for capital and are not so spread out (logistics & defense reasons). The actual tiles for each of our cities need some rethinking in any case.

Did you THH mean with coast also the City #2 in the above picture or only the east coast? East coast definitely seems like a backline so we are probably going to push more towards west, but that cows+corn site in the north is simply so good that I think it will definitely be one of our first four cities. My hypothesis is that the map is not so cramped that we need to compete for our first ring cities if we settle them say, before T50, (so that the order of those cities does not matter for neighbor reasons) but well, maybe there is a neighbor just outside the fog (I hope to get our scout back to west so that we get some further info). According to my current testing northern corn city provides faster start for our civ than western options. A city that shares pigs from capital and gets corn+wheat could start really fast and is probably worth testing, but wet corn is simply strong and that site would make later dot-mapping awkward (so hmmm..). A close 2nd city that would get sheep+gems has also its merits, but plains sheep pales in comparison to wet corn+sheep/cows.

Overall this simulated start feels kind of ok when we remember that it's not ready. Our first four cities all have granaries, there are 9 warriors in this no-copper-no-horses scenario running around. There have been five workers already for a while improving tiles, which is probably the right amount, although if cities 5 and 6 need lot of worker support then we probably need to have six workers at this point. Our core cities have maybe a bit too much whip unhappiness, but it's a close case. We have all the worker techs expect Masonry, we have Writing but no Archery (tech path after BW->Wheel->Agri->Pottery->AH is also a mere placeholder).

Everything will still change probably many times as plans get better and we get more info, but does anyone have thoughts about this current pic? Or some ideas that would be worth testing/considering?

[Fintourist]

Turn 13

Plains cows say that we should forget plains hill plants and just settle on desert and work FPs and eat steaks. I'm not sure if they were just ironic?




Next scouting move...?
1. E-SW and keep hugging the east coast, scout the area properly now that we are here and hope to find a hut in this area?
2. SW and then with max speed toward west through our own territory and see if there is something interesting (and huts)?
3. Something else?

[Old Harry]

I like E-SW next turn then SW onto the hill the turn after because I want to discover if there is a land bridge to the SE or if this side of our territory is all coast. If it is all coast that's brilliant - we then focus on expanding north and west as quick as we can and just come back here when we run out of room.

I guess now I've run out of excuses for not doing some simming . Will see if I get some time tonight...

[TheHumanHydra]

I agree with Harry re: scouting. As for my previous comment, I kinda meant settling toward the coast in any direction should be avoided, but if the location is that strong and lets us claim land toward our neighbours faster than we would be able to otherwise, then sure.

[Fintourist]

Obviously not going to do any C&D, but let's just note that Mardoc+Brick are the first team with size 2 capital. 2 free techs, own religion and the biggest city in the world.. Not too bad for a start.. And let's also note that scooter has popped two techs from huts. Damn it.

[Fintourist]

Turn 14

Come on now....




Somehow that fogged tile looked promising last turn as well, but maybe I'm just delusional.

In other news Barry Lyndon founded Hinduism. I don't really know what to make of that. Now that PB16-balloon has bursted I can state that both based on recent events there and that Irish-Adventurer-nickname I got a very smurfish feeling about him. I hope I'm wrong and he is really a new guy. I think Commodore's post in PB16 tech thread captured the essential stuff: playing under a different account is not a huge crime, it's kind of understandable, but there's a dishonest touch in it. Anyways, it would be nice to get a religion spread, but I think I still hope more that Mr. Lyndon is located somewhere far away from us and I don't need to think about this stuff.

[TheHumanHydra]

I wish people weren't so uptight about the smurf stuff. I think it's hilarious, and I really do understand wanting to make a fresh start of things.

[Commodore]

Please note: I was referring to serious smurfs. I am 100% for funny sock puppets.

[Fintourist]

Yeah, don't understand me wrong, it can be funny and I don't take this stuff too seriously either. Strictly from competitive perspective it's not exactly fair that one party hides the info of his past performances while he at the same time benefits from knowing the opponent himself. But yeah, in the big picture it still should be a minor thing as every game is different, people change etc.

[Fintourist]

Turn 15

I'm just terrible at popping techs...

But we found a neighbor!




Based on color my top guesses are Cheater Hater, HitAnyKey & Darrell+Ichabod. I'm leaning towards not making contact (which would happen if we progress onto forest SW of crabs). Firstly, that's kind of a slow diversion for our scout and does not reveal the capital tile anyways. Secondly, I'm betting that having one-sided info regarding where our neighbor is located has potential to be more beneficial than getting to know the name of our neighbor and revealing ourselves (which both can be good moves as well, it's a thin line, I can be persuaded here).

Next suggested move is therefore SW. Moving S does not reveal any tiles that SW would not reveal.